Falls the Shadow
by waiting4monkeys
Summary: When Ichigo and his friends follow an Espada through an old senkai gate, the last place they expect to end up at is the Ministry of Magic in London, England. Bleach/HP crossover. On hiatus.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Title is taken from T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" (aren't we clever!). Later chapters will likely be longer on average. This opens the summer before Harry's fourth year. We do not own Harry Potter or Bleach, we just have fun messing with the characters.

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**Chapter 1**

_Summer before Harry Potter's fourth year at Hogwarts_

Barnaby Bradshaw waved aside a few early morning memos buzzing around the top of the elevator as he stepped inside and nodded politely at the balding wizard within.

"Morning, Barny," said Arthur Weasley, yawning into his cup of coffee. "You're here early."

"Got some work to catch up on," Barnaby muttered, fingers straying to the pocket of his robes. The little vial was still there, warmed by the nearness of his body.

"Level Two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement," said the elevator's smooth voice.

"Well, have a good day, Barny." Arthur Weasley raised his coffee mug in salute, readjusted the wiggling toaster under his arm, and exited the elevator.

Barnaby barely heard him, fingers clutching again at the vial in his pocket as the elevator resumed its downward movement into the Ministry of Magic Headquarters. Technically he was supposed to take it directly to the Research and Development folks, but this was _his_ moment. _He_ had been the one with the contact in Japan… and had paid quite a bit out of his own pocket just to even hear a mention of it. He scowled. It wasn't _his_ fault that Japanese wizards were so closed-mouthed about those creatures that rumor alone named Hollows.

But now… now was his chance. He'd test it himself, that's all. Just a pinch—less than really—and then give it straight away to R and D. After all, what if it didn't work? What if his contact had given him a fake? Wouldn't do to lose face in front of the other Unspeakables… especially Croaker, the old crow. Resolve strengthened by the thought of Croaker's sallow, sneering face, Barnaby nodded to himself and stepped out of the elevator into the long, narrow hallway that led to the Department of Mysteries.

A few muttered incantations later, Barnaby stepped from the Rotation Room to the Death Chamber. Shivering slightly in the still, cool air, Barnaby donned a standard issue surgical mask. He may not be doing this the right way as far as R and D was concerned, but he was no fool when it came to releasing unknown substances into the air.

As he descended the stone bleachers, getting closer to the dais, Barnaby started to hear the whispers from behind the Veil. Some of the Unspeakables claimed they couldn't hear anything, others knew better than to get too close for fear that they would become one of the whispering voices themselves. Barnaby stopped a safe distance away, close enough to hear the voices, yet far enough away that should anything happen and he stumble, he would not fall through the Veil.

Barnaby opened the vial with trembling fingers—was he going to uncover a secret of death within minutes?—and pinched off the tiniest bit of the brittle gray substance—what his contact had called "Hollow bait." Holding his hand out to the Veil, Barnaby crushed the bait between his fingertips and flicked the dust from his hand.

For a good five minutes, nothing happened. Even in the dank chill of the room, Barnaby felt a bead of sweat travel down the back of his neck. Had he just been made a fool of? Had he just thrown thousands of galleons away on some silly Japanese trick? Barnaby threw the vial down in frustration and flinched when it shattered into bits of powder and glass shards. The tinkling glass sounded ominous in the Chamber. That probably hadn't been the wisest move. Even if the stuff was worthless, he should have kept some as proof that he had been swindled.

He turned away from the dais, mentally preparing the howler he would send to his contact, when something cold flew past his shoulder. Barnaby whirled, but the room was dark. Squinting, he thought he could just barely make out something in the far corner of the room… something with glowing eyes.

In his split second of shock, the Veil suddenly did something he'd never seen before, it waved frantically as if caught in a gale. Barnaby stared, mouth agape, as things started pouring through the Veil into the room. Monsters—for that was the only word he could think to describe them—lurched through the stone archway.

They were of all shapes and sizes, some resembling animals, others of no recognizable form. Some large enough to barely squeeze through the arch, others about the size of humans, but all with black, putrid green, moldy blue or purple skin and each with an eggshell white mask. One of them—with odd bat-shaped wings and a vicious beaked mask—flew through the air straight for him and he fell back instinctively, wand out.

"_S-Stupefy!_" he shouted, pointing his wand, but the white-masked monsters continued to flow past him into the room as if nothing had happed. It seemed as if an ocean of mold-laced bone was gushing from behind the curtain. Stumbling away from the dais, Barnaby fell against one of the stone steps and sat there, huddled, breath coming in shuddering gasps. He stared at the creatures filling the room, unspeakable fear rising like bile in the back of his throat. A chill—something akin to the terror induced by Dementors—came over him, and he began shaking.

The stream of creatures coming through the Veil wasn't slowing down and the ones already in the room were starting to stir with an insidious movement, like hunters on the prowl. More than once he heard one roar, a sound like a thousand tortured souls shrieking in agony. He had to get out of there. Stumbling in his haste to leave, tripping over reptilian limbs, feeling hundreds of eyes on him, Barnaby finally made it to the door and wrenched it open. Shouting the spell that kept the Rotation Room from spinning, he lurched across the floor and wrenched open the door.

"Bradshaw?" Croaker stood on the opposite side of the door that led to the hallway and elevator. His gummy old-man's eyes widened as he spotted what was behind Barnaby. "What the devil—?"

Barnaby didn't have time to think. He had to get them out; if they were discovered… if his colossal mistake was found out…

"_Stupefy!_" he shouted and Croaker fell over, a look of supreme shock stretching his face.

Barnaby lurched down the hall but tripped and fell on the hem of his robes. The hordes of masked monsters surged around and over the prone form of Croaker. Barnaby braced himself to be trampled. He squeezed himself into as small a ball as possible as the creatures slithered, stalked, and flew past him.

A particularly massive Hollow—one that seemed to be walking on four sets of clawed hands—rounded the corner, and Barnaby shuddered. It paused in front of him and seemed to be examining him out of the black slits in the mask. A sudden screech of metal made it look away from its prey. One of the larger creatures was grabbing the elevator, ripping it from the shaft. Barnaby could hear faintly the female elevator voice saying "Level Nine, the Department of Mysteries."

The eight-legged monster veered away from Barnaby and lurched toward the front of the scrum that was forming at the gash in the wall where the elevator used to be. Barnaby watched in horrified silence, as the creatures proceeded to disappear up the now empty elevator shaft.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: There be no owning of Bleach over here. Or there.

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**Chapter 2**

_Soul Society – a few days after the war with Aizen ends_

Ichigo yawned as Yamamoto-soutaicho thumped his cane on the floor for what would undoubtedly be yet another "congratulations on defeating Aizen, but the work is not yet finished" speech.

He cast a sideways glance at the line of people beside him on the right. Ishida was facing forward and looked appropriately solemn for the occasion, yet Ichigo thought his eyes behind his glasses looked a little glazed over. Chad, to Ishida's right, also sat stock still but with that mop of hair covering his eyes it was hard to tell what was going on beneath. To Chad's right Orihime appeared to be nodding off until Rukia jabbed her in the side with an elbow. On the opposite side, to his far left, sat Kuchiki Byakuya and his father, Kurosaki Isshin. Ichigo's eyebrow twitched. The old man certainly had a lot of explaining to do….

"Face front, idiot," muttered Renji immediately to Ichigo's left.

"You first, moron." Ichigo scowled but turned his attention toward the speaker.

"_I was_ paying attention," Renji shot out of the corner of his mouth.

"No you weren't!" Ichigo countered sotto-voice, in a provoked tone.

Both redheads were distracted by a hissing to their right. They craned their necks to see Rukia leaning forward out of the ranks to shoot them a piercing gaze of disapproval. Ichigo slouched a little and resolutely faced front. Renji, on the other hand, seemed to be communicating to Rukia, via slapdash sign language, that her intrusion was not appreciated. Rukia responded in kind, and Orihime had to dodge a fling of Rukia's little hand.

Ichigo glanced away from the brewing tiff, hoping to disassociate himself with the growing disturbance to his right. Unfortunately, in looking away, he caught a warning eye from his father. Actually, the eye didn't seem to be warning so much as goading, which was typical. Byakuya was not looking around, but he sat more stiffly than ever. As Ichigo was furiously gesticulating that he had nothing to do with whatever was going on to his right, he managed to clip Renji's shoulder with his forearm, which earned him an elbow in the armpit. It was _on_ now.

Ichigo was getting ready to lodge Renji's head in his offended armpit when he sensed that something had shifted in the attitude of the audience around him. For one, Old Yamamoto had stopped talking. For another, a number of the shinigami around them were standing up. The delinquents froze as they were and peered around nervously.

It took Ichigo a moment to realize that they weren't the ones that had brought a halt to the meeting. Far from it, even Kurosaki Isshin was no longer getting ready to launch himself into the fray; his attention was off to the west of the ceremony. A dim rumble and a clammy stench seemed to be coming from that direction. Yamamoto had actually stepped off of the podium and was muttering commands to a few captains in the front row.

A sudden rift tore through the sky and a host of white masks poured out. Every soul reaper present leapt to attention. Hollows. In Soul Society. What the hell?

Ichigo followed Renji and a stream of other black-robed shinigami as they raced to the exit of the hall they had been convened in.

"Kurosaki-kun!"

Ichigo turned, one hand on Zangetsu's wrapped hilt, as shinigami raced past him or stopped and stared with jaws agape at the hollows pouring through the rift. Orihime was pushing her way through the mass of soul reapers to get to him. She too wore black—an honorary shinigami costume bestowed for services rendered during the war with Aizen.

"What, Inoue?" Ichigo already heard the screams of Hollows and the sounds of battle met. Zangetsu throbbed in his palm, ready for battle.

"Haven't you learned yet? Wait for us." Orihime smiled and over her head he saw Chad's broad shoulders breaking a path through the crowd. Rukia and Ishida followed in his wake.

Ichigo nodded at them. "All right, let's go!"

The group raced through the various labyrinth turns of Seiretei, dispatching any hollows as they encountered them. But the number didn't seem to be decreasing. It seemed almost impossible that there were this many hollows _left _in Hueco Mundo in the aftermath of the most recent war. Ichigo didn't spare much time for these musings, though. He let his body and sword get into the familiar groove of killing; slicing masks and limbs in half in a fluid dance of cleansing. He sensed, rather than saw his companions at his sides, responding in kind with their own brands of beautiful violence. The crashes of Chad's fists and the bolts of energy that sprang from Ishida's bow seemed to punctuate every skirmish, or season the battles like salt and pepper. Even Orihime, though she did not attack, made a point of throwing up force fields at opportune times. Ichigo allowed himself a grin. They were getting better at this.

They slowly made their way through the invasion force. Ichigo was shocked at how quickly the hollows had infiltrated and scattered. It was difficult to keep them from slipping out and away into Sereitei. After a particularly fierce battle in a pale-stoned courtyard they paused to regroup, breathing hard, then they all heard a high, maniacal laugh that seemed to reverberate off the limestone walls.

Ichigo whirled, Zangetsu sliding into readiness once more, and looked around. "Grimmjaw?" he muttered. It was impossible; that Espada had been slain and the countless souls that made up his existence finally cleansed. But who…?

A speck in the sky, different from the beastly shapes of the hollows still pouring through the rift, flew toward Seiretei. White hakama flapping in the breeze, snakes of dark hair hanging to his waist, the humanoid figure launched itself at a group of members from a squad—Ichigo couldn't tell which at this distance. They all raised their zanpakutous, but the newcomer blasted them with a cero that blew apart part of the courtyard.

When the smoke cleared, the shinigami who had stood up to the newcomer were little more than smears on the wall. Ichigo ran forward, jaw clenched in fury.

"Hey, who the hell are you?"

The Arrancar turned to meet him, a wide, unsettling grin splitting his sharp features, and he looked Ichigo up and down. "You're that half-hollow kid I heard so much about in Hueco Mundo, yes? I'd been hoping to meet you."

"Oh yeah?" Ichigo sneered. "Here I am, then. And you still didn't answer my question: who are you?"

"Hasdrubal Calixto, formerly of the Espada," he added, still grinning. "Let's do this."

Ichigo gripped his zanpakutou. "Bankai!"

Instead of coming to the ready, Hasdrubal raised his own sword and propped it casually against his shoulder, still that annoying grin in place. He jerked his head at Ichigo's friends gathered to watch, all looking tense and ready to leap in at a moment's notice.

"That red-haired girl… friend of yours?"

Ichigo narrowed his eyes. In his hands, Zangetsu's black blade quivered with the desire to fight. "What's it to you?"

Hasdrubal shrugged. "Nothing, really. Just heard from various quarters in Las Noches that she was particularly… tasty: if you know what I mean. Just wanted to know if the rumors were true."

Ichigo suddenly appeared at Hasdrubal's back, his sword tip at the base of his neck, shoved through a forest of heavy dreadlocks.

"Say something about Inoue again," he hissed, eyes flashing, going from brown to yellow as his anger increased.

"You _are _fast, aren't you?" Quicker than Ichigo suspected, Hasdrubal flicked his sword up and over, neatly parrying Ichigo's blade at the back of his neck.

Ichigo fell back, surprised, and narrowed his eyes. Before he could try another attack, however, Hasdrubal suddenly stiffened and looked around wildly.

"No!" he shouted. "Not here! Not _now_!" In a blink, he vanished.

Ichigo shouted in surprise. "Where'd he go?" he yelled over at Renji.

Renji hopped up on top of a wall, shielding his eyes to look over at something beyond their line of sight. "Don't know," he shouted back. "But the hollows are doing something weird."

Ichigo, Rukia, and the rest of the gang jumped to the top of the wall. The hollows, which were previously milling about fighting shinigami, were all headed in one direction.

"What are you all standing around for?" Ichigo said. "Let's get them! That Hasdrubal character must be up to something."

"Wait, Ichigo," Rukia latched on to his sleeve. "Where did this guy come from? All the Espada are gone…"

"I don't remember seeing him… Maybe he was a last minute batch from the Hogyokou?" Orihime offered, brow crinkling in thought.

"Could be he was too new to do much good fighting so Aizen had him hidden away in case his defeat should happen." Ishida pushed his glasses up his nose and tilted his head up in an expression that could only be described as intellectual pondering.

"I don't care where he came from," Ichigo snarled. "We gotta find out what he's up to. _Now_."

"What is it, Renji?" Rukia suddenly said. Everyone turned to Renji whose tattooed brow was furrowed in something like worry.

"Nothin'," he said quickly. "It's just that all those hollows look like they're headed toward the Old Quarter."

"What's in this 'Old Quarter'?" Ichigo said blankly.

"Nothing much," Rukia said, clambering to the top of Renji's shoulders so she too could look out over the orange-shingled roofs. "There's an old senkai gate there that the 12th Division used for experiments, but it was closed off before I became a shinigami. No one's allowed to go there now."

"A senkai gate? Why was it closed?" Chad rumbled.

Rukia shrugged. "Maybe it broke down. It happens occasionally with older gates, though usually they're just rebuilt…"

"This is all fascinating," Ichigo said in a flat voice, "but can we skip the history lesson and get to tracking down that Espada? It can't be good to have him wandering around Soul Society."

"As much as I hate to admit it, Berry-Head's right," Renji said, poking Rukia so she hopped down from his shoulders.

They practically flew through the streets of Soul Society. Ichigo was at least three strides ahead of the rest, but everyone kept up tolerably well. Many of the shinigami they passed were in pursuit of the herd of hollows as well, but some were regrouping. A few were injured, but the hollows hadn't been around for long enough to inflict enormous damage, and very few people seemed to have caught sight of the Espada, much less tried to come up against him.

Ishida pulled up parallel with Ichigo, "Do you feel the reiatsu diminishing? They're leaving Soul Society!"

Ichigo didn't feel much of anything, but he figured Ishida knew what he was talking about. "That just means we need to get there before that asshole gets away!"

"Shinigami of the 13 Gotei," Yamamoto-soutaicho's voice, amplified by kidou, rumbled across the landscape of Soul Society. Most of the pursuing shinigami paused or glanced at the sky at the voice of their commander. "The hollows are exiting Soul Society via a senkai gate. Please return to your squad headquarters for regrouping and deployment. Do not pursue the hollows as they will now be barred from reentering the Seiretei."

"Like hell!"

"Ichigo – that means _stop_!" Rukia called forward to Ichigo as she slowed down and skidded to a stop.

"You can stop if you want, I'm not in anyone's gotei," Ichigo shouted over his shoulder, boosting his speed. The others followed, though Renji lagged a little and glanced back at Rukia with a "well, what are we supposed to do?" look.

Muttering a handful of choice curses she had picked up from her time on Earth, Rukia began to run again. They were entering the Old Quarter, where the buildings were low to the ground and seemed to lean into the street like tired old men on canes. Every few paces they would turn a corner, chasing the heels of the closest hollows, generally swerving to the north and the west of sector.

One more corner, and the friends faced a ugly, slumping warehouse. The doors of the place had been savaged off their hinges by hollows cramming themselves in to the building. It seemed that most of the hollows had already gone inside. They cut down a couple of stragglers as they leapt into the building. The inside of the warehouse seemed to be mostly empty but for a single archway, freestanding at the end of the room. It didn't look like the senkai gates that Ichigo knew about and this one had clearly seen better days: a rotted-looking black gauze of fabric seemed to swing from the pitted, battered frame. A little knock-kneed insect of a hollow skittered across the warehouse floor ahead of them and whooped a little as it slid through the veil and out of sight.

Ichigo, Rukia, Ishida, Chad, Renji, and Orihime stood and stared at the arch, a sense of cold foreboding making them pause.

"Well, let's go on then." Ichigo was the first to make a move toward the veil.

"We don't know where that leads, maybe we should regroup as…" Rukia paused as a fluttering shriek seemed to pierce the air.

"Aw shit." Renji looked up at the ceiling. "They're _destroying_ the senkai gate?"

The others glanced up and noticed an evil purple glow seeping in the cracks of the warehouse.

"Through the gate, everybody!"

There was no time to get out of the warehouse by conventional methods. Ichigo just hoped that the gate wasn't too long – they had to get through it before…,

A white-purple haze of heat seemed to be growing in the room. They all clamored toward the gate at a sprint. Ichigo saw the veil catch fire just as he tumbled into darkness.

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A/N: Many apologies for the delay in this chapter. Singeivoire's computer is ailing so we've unable to collab or edit the chapters we have finished. She snuck a little bit of time today at her husband's office, but until their laptop is fixed, her time online will be limited. Stay with us though! We'll still write; it just may be slower in coming than we'd like. Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Thanks again for your extreme patience! Singeivoire's laptop had a run-in with some spyware and came out worse the wear. But with the help of some cleansing software, it seems that all is back to normal. We hope.

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**Chapter 3**

Mayhem reigned at the Ministry of Magic. Cornelius Fudge could only watch in helpless despair as the white-masked monsters—Hollows, Alastor Moody had bellowed as he tried and failed to jinx half a dozen—roamed around the lobby. Early arrivals to the wizarding world's governmental offices shrieked and ducked behind potted plants or brandished wands with garbled spells that seemed to have absolutely no effect at all.

At least someone—probably Kingsley Shacklebolt; he was an efficient sort—had thought to turn off the Floo entrances. For awhile wizards and witches had been shooting straight into the chaos without warning. Now, at least, they wouldn't be arriving by fireplace.

Fudge crouched behind an overturned desk, clutching his hands to his head. His gray hair stood on end from how many times he'd repeated that motion in the past ten minutes. He was ruined utterly; monsters from the Department of Mysteries running amok in London? The Muggle Prime Minister—not to mention the wizarding public—would have his head mounted and stuffed. And then that Bulgarian minister who was expected to arrive at any moment for the festivities surrounding the Quidditch World Cup…. Fudge thought he might as well drown himself in the Fountain of Magical Brethren.

At least most of the monsters were gone now. The majority of them had followed a sinister-looking fellow with dreadlocks and odd, white Muggle clothing up to the top of the elevator shaft to the surface. But some of the monsters had spilled out onto the main Atrium on their way up the shaft and were now the cause of Fudge's latest ulcer.

"_Stupefy!_" shouted a wizard. The spell hit the mask of a large Hollow and bounced off, cracking the ceiling tile.

"Stop hurling jinxes at them!" bellowed Alastor Moody, his own wand brandished despite his statement. "Haven't you learned yet that spells don't work on them?"

"What should we do, Alastor?" said Kingsley Shacklebolt in a calm voice, eyeing the monsters with concern. The other Aurors were trying to evacuate the office workers through the emergency exit while the rest tried to deal with the creatures. It had been sheer luck that Moody—one of the best in his day—had been at the Ministry. Wanted to check in on some dark wizard's Azkaban records or something along those lines; Fudge couldn't remember now.

Fudge could see Moody's magical eye going haywire as it looked the creatures up and down.

"Don't know," he growled, squinting. "My eye doesn't know what to make of them. It wants to tell me that they're not there on some level."

"Have you gone mad?" Fudge yelped, another tuft of hair coming loose. "The damages alone to the elevator shaft are going to cost taxpayers thousands of galleons! And you say that something that isn't there caused it?"

"No it's not that, Minster. It's just… well, they're not alive."

Before Fudge could do more than bluster at this extraordinary statement, something rumbled beneath his feet, vibrating though the soles of his shoes.

"What the devil—?"

A twisted lump of the door to the elevator for the lower levels flew past his ear and if it hadn't been for the metallic taste of blood in his mouth were he'd bit his lip too hard, Fudge would have thought he'd fallen into some kind of hallucination. An Asian teenager with vivid orange hair and black robes that might have been wizardish were they not so ragged burst through the elevator shaft that the Hollows had come from, skidding on the dusty tiled floor near where Fudge had taken refuge. In his hands he carried not a wand but a sleek, deadly looking sword with a black blade.

Five more people pulled themselves out of the shaft, each as outlandish looking as the first: the second man was clearly a criminal delinquent of some kind; his hair was died an unnatural shade of red and jerky tattoos spiraled out of control on his forehead. The third, bronze-skinned and with a strange armored arm, looked around before glancing back down the shaft, reaching down his hand to someone Fudge couldn't see. Tattoo-head looked around in confusion, spotted Fudge—who gaped at them open-mouthed—and said something to the boy with orange hair.

"_Yosh!_" the boy nodded and then the group set to work. Hollows screamed as Tattoo-head approached with a sword that somehow was now twenty feet long. Another boy, pale-faced and wearing glasses, seemed to be shooting beams of light. A petite, dark-haired woman leapt into the air with a shout, bringing her sword upon the head of a hollow scuttling away toward the front of the room. From his vantage point Fudge could only watch in amazement as the six newcomers neatly dispatched of all the hollows roaming around the Ministry of Magic.

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"That looks like the last of them," Ishida Uryuu said, releasing his Quincy bow.

"Yeah," said Ichigo with a frown as he looked at their surroundings for the first time. "But where the hell are we? And where's that Espada? I didn't see him with those hollows we just fought."

Uryuu sighed. How typical of Ichigo to still not be able to sense the subtleties of reiatsu even after the Aizen War…. Uryuu concentrated a moment and shook his head.

"He's gone." He furrowed his brows. "Still here… wherever that is, but not in the immediate vicinity."

"Damn," Ichigo muttered and hooked his zanpakutou to his back, his bankai form fading away.

"They can see us," Rukia said suddenly. The group looked around and noticed for the first time that they were surrounded. A circle of adults had hemmed them in. Clearly none were shinigami—all were too portly or ordinary.

Well, maybe ordinary was a bad choice of words, Ishida mused, after all, they were all wearing vibrant bathrobes and holding sticks out in front of them like weapons. Maybe they were cattle prods or tasers?

"_Ano,_ but of course they see us, some of us are physically here…" Orihime raised a hand with her timid observation. "Ishida-kun, Sado-kun, and I were always visible."

"So maybe they think they've only cornered those of us they can see…?" Renji broke from the group and strolled forward to stand in front of a shivering little man wearing navy blue and holding his cattle prod with both hands. The man's eyes followed Renji's every step.

"No, Rukia's right, they can see _all_ of us."

Arms akimbo, the redhead pulled a feral grin and bent forward to lock eyes with the blue-clad cattle prodder. The little man took an involuntary step back, flicked his stick and babbled something incomprehensible. A sheet of semi-opaque light seemed to erupt from the end of the baton and rest between Renji and the bizarre little audience that had gathered around them.

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Several things seemed to happen at once when Cranford put up the shield charm between the strangers and himself. First off, a couple of braver individuals who had been near the front of the surrounding circle found themselves trapped on the wrong side of the barrier and were now scrambling to be released. Second, Cranford himself swayed on his spot and seemed ready to faint before Alastor Moody stepped forward and gripped the wizard's arm shouting, "Wait, they might be Muggles!" Third, the delinquent with the tattoos jumped back himself, both at the appearance of the shield, and, Fudge supposed, at the appearance of Moody. And fourth, a pretty young redheaded woman began gesturing excitedly at the shield and yammering at her companions and three pixies floating around her head. That they were pixies wasn't the problem; that they had suddenly flown _out of her head_ was.

Galvanized by the presence of some protection and eager for some semblance of order, Fudge set his bowler firmly on his head and stepped forward to take charge. "What is the meaning of all this?"


	4. Chapter 4

Hurrah! Another chapter! We thank you for your patience with the updates, and thanks for reading! Waiting4morning and I are frankly AWESOME, but we still don't own these characters.

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Chapter 4

The man with the hat looked for all the world like a human plum, swathed as he was in purple. Ishida was less concerned with the man's fashion choices (troubling though they were) than he was with the words coming out of his mouth. "I believe they're speaking English."

"Great, a lot of good that does us. Do you speak English or something?" Ichigo retorted.

"Yes, in fact, I do."

Ichigo merely looked annoyed, but Orihime clapped her hands in delight. "Can you ask them how they make that shield? Lily says it is very similar in composition to my _Santen Kesshun_, or, I mean, _our_ _Santen Kesshun_—"

"Well, hold on a minute—"

"You _would_ learn English for the hell of it," Ichigo interrupted Ishida's interruption.

"Maybe you should go _talk_ to them if you can." Rukia cut in with crossed arms and her no-nonsense voice.

"I think you're absolutely right, Kuchiki-san." Ishida adjusted his glasses and turned to address the plum-man, who appeared to be somewhat in charge.

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Ichigo quickly got tired of hearing Ishida and Purple-Bathrobe Man jabber at each other in English. He would have thought that the man was a typical loud-mouthed Western tourist except for the undeniable fact that he could plainly see all of them and that shouldn't have been possible. Ichigo glanced around at the hall they stood in. This place, wherever it was, did not look familiar. He hoped they weren't too far from Karakura—it would be awkward getting back home without his body. He'd left it at home in bed with strict instructions to Karin and Yuzu to leave him alone.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Ishida—looking bewildered—turned back to the group.

"Well?" Ichigo said, crossing his arms across his chest. "Where are we?"

Ishida adjusted the bridge of his glasses, though they already rested as far up on his nose as they would go. "This man," he gestured to Purple-Bathrobe, "is Cornelius Fudge," he fumbled slightly over the slippery name, "and he says he's the Minister of Magic here… in London, England."

Shocked silence followed Ishida's pronouncement.

"What the hell's a Minster of Magic? And where's England?" Renji glared at Ishida as if their predicament was his fault.

"What's the matter, has the ink from your tattoos poisoned your brain?" Rukia smirked.

A vein popped in Renji's forehead. "Say that again you little—"

"It's on the other side of the world, damn it," Ichigo interrupted with enough volume that several of the adults still surrounding them jumped in alarm.

"Five thousand, nine hundred and sixty-six miles away, give or take a few," Ishida mused.

Ichigo ran a hand through his hair. "Rukia," Ichigo continued in a more normal tone of voice, "how the hell did we end up here? I thought senkai gates were unique to Japan?"

Rukia looked up at him, her sharp features mirroring the surprise Ichigo felt. "I'm just as startled as you are. Like I said back in Soul Society, the senkai gate in the Old Quarter had been used for experiments well before I became a shinigami. Who knows? Perhaps one of the experiments opened a gate here and that's why they closed it?"

Ichigo ground his teeth in frustration. Great. Lost on the other side of the freaking world in a place where they probably couldn't simply open up another senkai gate—or where they could call on the aid of other shinigami to hunt down the still wandering Espada—Hasdrubal Calixto. At least if they were stranded it meant he was stranded too. But what kind of havoc would he wreak on a world totally unprepared for his destructive power?

* * *

The old man strolled the streets of London, apparently lost in his thoughts. Though he _was_ thinking, he was most certainly _not_ lost. He knew exactly where he was—both physically and metaphorically. He was on a certain street approaching a certain phone booth through which he would soon enter the Ministry of Magic. There were easier means of entrance but he liked seeing a bit of the city every so often, and he enjoyed catching people off guard by doing the unexpected. _M__entally_ he was meandering the space between finding a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor (yet again) and the theory that Mermish and Japanese were derived from the same root language.

He was caught off-guard by the gaping hole where the phone booth used to be. The booth itself looked dingier than usual, lying mangled on its side about a half a block from the crater. As there didn't seem to be any sounds of carnage coming from the hole, and he was not one to be deprived of a plastic name tag, the gentleman crouched over the booth and told the mangled phone his business in the Ministry of Magic.

With a very feeble clatter, the phone spit out a tag at the old man, who bent and retrieved it from the twisted wreckage: "Abus Mumblebore, Triblizzard Tourniquet meating." Close enough. Dumbledore polished the plastic and pinned it on the front of his robes before picking his way over the rubble and floating himself down the hole into the Ministry.

Dumbledore allowed himself a small smile at the happenstance that had him entering the Ministry of Magic to an auditory barrage of Japanese.

The two knots of people were very distinct from one another—one used Japanese, the other English; one had outlandish-colored hair, the other outlandish-colored robes—but every person to the last looked befuddled, nervous, and simmering with anger. Dumbledore also noted the general disarray of the entrance hall to the Ministry. It looked as if a disgruntled flock of hippogriffs had recently passed through.

"Well, what do we do with them?" muttered an Auror.

"The look like vigilantes to me – maybe we should detain them for a time…"

"I'm not sure we _could_ detain them if we wanted to."

And in the other circle, Dumbledore was pleased to understand maybe a third of what was being said—perhaps there was some merit to the Mermashanese theory after all. Or was that Japamish? Or Mermapanese? He made a mental note to ask Barty Crouch about it; he had a better head for that sort of thing.

"Well, blah blah they blah want?" The boy with the orange hair gabbed, scowling and casting suspicious glances at the robed wizards.

"Blah blah blah blah time." The tall, dark one mumbled a great deal so it was hard to catch any of what he said.

"Blah blah arrest blah blah completely."

"Well screw that!" The one with the profusion of red ponytail was easier to understand as he was loud and apparently rather irate. He fidgeted with a vicious looking toothed sword at his side.

Dumbledore thought it best that he make his presence known to the Minister of Magic, at least. He took a step toward Fudge, cleared his throat and spoke. "Did I come at a bad time, Cornelius?"


	5. Chapter 5

_So... yeah. It's been a long time this was updated. I'm sorry to say that this fic will probably never be finished. See, Singeivoire moved to another state and actually has a job and a house and stuff to do. My job also got pretty crazy and Bleach was frustrating both of us. _

_But we'll post what we had written (which is this chapter and I think one more) and that'll probably be the last you ever see of it. We're very sorry-we know how much it stinks to read a good fic and then discover that the author(s) aren't going to finish. But we did have fun while it lasted._

* * *

**Chapter 5**

The bearded old man who appeared in their midst seemed to calm down the bathrobe people. Some of them at least; the human plum was still nervy. The old man approached, peering over his half-moon spectacles. Ishida pushed his own glasses up his nose again.

"I couldn't help but notice that the phone booth is, uh, no longer functioning as it should," said the old man, bright blue eyes darting here and the over the Soul Society group, then coming to a rest on the Minister again.

"We have a situation, sir," said the tall black man with the gold earring. Ishida hadn't caught his name, but he appeared to be something of a Lieutenant.

"It's more than a situation!" scowled the Minster who flung his pudgy hand so that it pointed squarely at Ichigo's scowling face. "These… these… rabble-rousing delinquents have somehow caused creatures called Hollows to come here! And just look what they've done to my Ministry! And how am I going to face the Minister from Bulgaria in this state, I have no idea."

"Hollows?" the old man repeated quickly, his genial smile fading. "Are you sure, Cornelius?"

"Quite sure, Albus. I've only seen them in the Auror bingo book, but they fit the description alright," grunted another wizard, the odd one with the wooden leg and the blue eye that moved independently of the other. Just looking at it gave Ishida the creeps.

"Will someone tell us what's going on?" Ichigo yelled. All eyes turned to him.

"Shut up, Kurosaki!" Ishida hissed. "This could turn into an international incident if you don't keep your big mouth—"

"_Konichiwa_," said the old man into Ishida's furiously hissed tirade. The group from Soul Society looked up and the old man bowed. Automatically they all bowed back.

"Finally, someone speaks Japanese around here!" Renji growled.

The old man smiled uncertainly. "Uh, _gomen asai, _I actually don't know as much as I should."

"It's okay, I speak English," Ishida said, rubbing his forehead. This was going to be a long night.

"Oh good. I know a few translation spells, but they are unwieldy and not very accurate," said the old man cheerfully. "I beg your pardon, Cornelius has not introduced us. I am Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and since I'm sure you'd rather all be comfortable instead of standing around in this debris, a moment if you please." He turned, flicking his long, slender baton and the elevator door that lay crumpled behind them suddenly straightened out and fixed itself back in place. Another flick and chairs righted themselves, desks broken in half from stampeding Hollows become whole again, and shards from a vase righted themselves. One more flick and a dozen squashy purple poufs appeared in the newly cleared space. Dumbledore finished it off with conjuring a bouquet of bright flowers to place in the vase.

"There," he said with satisfaction. "That's rather more cozy, don't you think?"

Ishida cleared his dry throat. He'd seen his share of bizarre things since he'd started hanging out with Kurosaki Ichigo, but this latest adventure was surely going to break the bank on his credulity.

Dumbledore stroked his long white beard. If he'd been a smoker, this would have been quite a "three pipe problem," as a detective friend of his used to say. The oddly dressed visitors from Japan were huddled together, looking tired and frustrated on their poufs. The one that spoke English—Uryuu—sat sipping some of the tea that Dumbledore had conjured as he finished a lengthy explanation for their appearance.

"Well, that's just preposterous," Fudge was blustering, looking pale and worried. "Espada! Hollows! It's all nonsense and I won't stand for it!"

"My dear Cornelius," Dumbledore fixed the minister with a steely blue gaze, "we can put Veritaserum in their tea if you would like to verify their story, but I hardly think it is necessary. You saw as well as anyone that Hollows have indeed come to our world and we are grossly unprepared for them. But here we have not one but five highly skilled Hollow hunters. We can have this problem cleared up well before the Triwizard Tournament if you let them."

"But Dumbledore—" Fudge said plaintively. Dumbledore sensed weakness and pressed forward.

"How about this, Cornelius. I shall take them to Hogwarts. They may operate from there and be of no bother to any of your diplomatic missions. Filius Flitwick—our Charms professor as you may recall—has a contact in Japan I believe, and may be of use to this current situation."

Fudge hesitated, but Dumbledore could see that the temptation to brush the whole mess under the rug was too much to resist.

"Very well," he nodded finally. "I'll set aside the… unusual method of their entering the Ministry provided they don't mention to anyone what they saw here. The Unspeakables, you understand, are a bit sensitive on the subject."

"Indeed," Dumbledore said with faint amusement. "Now, if you'll permit me, Cornelius. A portkey, I think, is in order. A perpetual portkey would be most practical under the circumstances. That way our visitors can travel back and forth between the Ministry and Hogwarts easily."

Not waiting for a response, Dumbledore picked up the brightly colored vase, removed its flowers, and tapped it with his wand in a complicated rhythm, muttering _portus perpetuous_ under his breath. Fudge, on cue, sputtered into action.

"You must first fill out an application for that perpetual reciprocating portkey, Dumbledore! And pay the fees! We can't be setting precedent by allowing an unauthorized perpetual reciprocating portkey to remain unlicensed and unlisted!"

The young man with glasses who spoke English had been translating – or at least summarizing – simultaneously to his companions while Dumbledore and Fudge were talking. He fumbled a little over "Hogwarts" and "portkey," but was not utterly derailed until Fudge began spouting bureaucratic nonsense. Dumbledore watched him pause, frown, adjust his glasses, and cross his arms.

"Well? What are they talking about?" The one with the tattoos fidgeted impatiently.

"Nothing important." The bespectacled boy said stiffly. Dumbledore allowed himself a small smile and turned back to the Minister of Magic.

"Just send the paperwork by owl, and I'm sure it will be taken care of eventually." Dumbledore stood up and gestured for the visitors to stand as well. They obeyed – some more reluctantly than others.

"You'll all want to be touching this vase." He held the portkey forward and the visitors shot each other dubious looks. "Don't worry, it's just a vase." Dumbledore held the vase out patiently and the one with short red-orange hair tentatively reached out to touch it with a single finger as though it would electrocute him. When no shock was forthcoming, he shrugged, and the others followed suit.

Dumbledore had time to glance over the head of the small brunette and see Fudge's befuddled outrage before the world began to blur.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Ichigo almost managed to keep his feet upon reentry because of the bookcase right behind him, but there was the ominous tinkling of small delicate items breaking and he wound up splayed on the floor – hitting every single shelf on his way down. Ishida and the old man were the only ones who managed to keep their feet without foible. The Quincy looked rather smug about it too. Chad didn't technically fall over, as he collapsed conveniently into a squashy armchair, but Renji's efforts to stay upright were foiled when Rukia crashed into him. Inoue was quite simply all over the place: her head on Chad's feet and one heel landing in Ichigo's gut.

"Okay, what the _hell_ just happened?" Renji hollered from out of Rukia's armpit.

"We've just transported to school for magical young people, much like yourselves." The old man set the now empty vase on a desk. They appeared to have landed in an office of some kind. Dumbledore picked a squashed daisy out of his beard and placed it in the vase.

"Dobby."

Rukia, Ichigo, and Renji shouted with alarm as a spindly creature with bat-like ears suddenly appeared in their midst. Dumbledore held out a calming hand. The creature bowed low, eyeing the group from Japan with wide-eyed curiosity.

"Dobby, would you be so kind as to go to Filius Flitwick's house and ask him to come to Hogwarts as soon as possible?"

"Yes, Master Dumbledore, sir!" squeaked the creature and it disappeared with a crack.

Dumbledore was hit with an auditory barrage of Japanese. Poor Uryuu looked quite overwhelmed. Dumbledore conjured a few more chairs—of the squashy armchair variety—and a plate of sandwiches.

"Is anyone hungry?" he inquired politely. The noise died down, and the shortest of the group, the brunette with eyes too big for her face, stepped forward. Uryuu followed.

"Dumbledore-dono," said the woman through Uryuu, "although we appreciate your efforts to get us out of the entanglements of your bureaucracy, there are dangerous forces at work here that you may not be prepared for. I am Rukia Kuchiki of the Thirteenth Division of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads. As acting commander while we are stranded here—"

"Wait just one minute!" Renji protested, pushing to the front, and standing over Rukia with a scowl. "I'm the Lieutenant here! _I_ outrank _you_."

Rukia stood calmly, folding her arms across her chest. "Of course you do, Lieutenant Abarai-dono. I merely wanted to offer my… more extensive experience with diplomacy. Or perhaps you would rather discuss the nature of our time here, our battle strategies, and how we're going to get gigais from the other side of the world?"

Renji started to look uncomfortable, looking from Dumbledore's twinkling eyes, back to Rukia's deceptively calm face.

"Nah," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck, "go on with what you were doing."

"Thank you," Rukia said sweetly.

"Way to stand up for yourself," Ichigo muttered as Renji slouched back to his spot.

"Shut up."

"Hollows," Rukia continued, seating herself in an armchair, "are naturally attracted to places with high spiritual concentration and especially to wandering souls—ghosts, you term them I think."

Dumbledore frowned, interlacing his long, thin fingers. "Off the top of my head, this country has at least thirty such places that any guide book will tell you about and another thirty or so more that only a few people know about. Hogsmeade—the village adjacent to the school—is the only entirely wizarding village in Britain and thus attracts a number of ghosts." He paused. "I am afraid that my knowledge of Hollows is rather scant… will they be a danger to my students when classes start?"

Rukia considered the question. "The students should be safe from the normal Hollows… they are only interested in sating their appetite for souls, but they usually do not forcibly remove a soul from its body unless they kill the body."

"I am not reassured," Dumbledore said. "In fact, I am rather alarmed because Hollows are starting to sound distressingly like Dark creatures we call Dementors." He rubbed his forehead wearily. "And now it seems that I have the Hogwarts ghosts to worry about as well." He raised his head, speaking again before Uryuu could completely translate his last words. "Armando, Phineas, and Dilys, would you be so good as to visit various areas of the castle and find Sir Nicholas for me?"

The Soul Society group stared in surprise as three portraits above their heads gave affirmative answers and then disappeared from their frames. Just then, a knock sounded at the door.

"Come in!" Dumbledore called, and the door opened to reveal the short creature called Dobby and behind him a taller figure—though still shorter than average.

"Ah, Filus, thank you for joining us so late in the evening," Dumbledore said with a smile,

"Not a problem!" squeaked the tiny man, glancing around at the room full of strangers. "How can I be of service?"

"Well—" Dumbledore started, but was interrupted yet again by Orihime shrieking as Sir Nicholas floated in through the door. He looked at her with a long-suffering expression.

"You were searching for me, Headmaster?" Sir Nicholas said, floating forward, adjusting his ruff.

"Yes, thank you, Sir Nicholas. I don't have time to explain at the moment, but I'll need you to call one of your 'ghost's councils'—invite any neighboring ghosts from Hogsmeade as well. There may be creatures coming that prey on ghosts—er, Miss Kuchiki, what are you doing?"

Rukia had drawn her sword, hilt first, and advanced upon Sir Nicholas with an expression of dewy-eyed compassion.

"I'm going to perform a soul burial," she said matter-of-factly. "It's one of the most important duties of a soul reaper."

Sir Nicholas was now floating back, tugging at his ruff in an agitated manner.

"Don't you want to cross over, sir?" Rukia said in a gentle voice, hilt starting to glow.

"Oooh! A soul burial!" squeaked Professor Flitwick, clapping his hands excitedly. "I've only heard of these—"

"N-no, no! I'm quite all right, thank you!" Sir Nicholas turned and fled through the door.

Dumbledore seemed torn between laughter and dismay. "I'm afraid I must insist that you don't perform any of your soul burials while you are here."

Rukia looked mutinous. "And if the ghost _wants_ to pass on?"

"By all means, then, you are welcome to it. All I ask is that you inform them exactly what you're doing and give them the choice."

Rukia sniffed and re-sheathed her sword. "Very well. We are in your country, and we will respect your wishes."

"Now," said Dumbldore, turning to Flitwick, "Filius, do you happen to know anything about…" he glanced at Uryuu.

"Gigais," he supplied, biting into a sandwich.

Flitwick's eyes grew round. "Oooh, I knew this was going to be a good day!"

* * *

_And that's all we have written... D:_


End file.
